Tips for New Players
Are you a new player? The info here should help you out! (work in progress, feel free to contribute to the list) General information MUDs, or Multi-user dungeons, are generally role-playing games without graphics. Imagine D&D, except that you read all the descriptions. As such, interaction is all through commands such as 'eat', 'drink', 'kill', 'buy' and such. There are many types of MUDs. Some will allow you to choose a class as have skills assigned to you. Hotl3 opens up a world of flexibility, allowing you to choose the skills you want. Hotl3 basics The above example is what you will see in the MUD. The top line in green, 'The Temple Square', is the description of the room that you are in. The second line in pink lists the exits from the room. Movement is the MUD is restricted to the 4 cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), up and down. To travel in a direction, just type the direction. It is not necessary to type all 5 letters of 'north'. Just 'n' will do. The MUD will understand abbreviations for all commands. The lines in light blue are the description of the room. This can be toggled on or off. The line in dark blue is the mobs, or creatures/monsters/characters in the room, which you need to kill to gain experience points to increase in levels. Take note that not all mobs can be fought. Finally, the last line showcases your basic stats. Hitpoints, mana and movement points are needed to skills and spells. ap means action points and tnl means the experience points 't'o '''n'ext 'l'evel'. If there are things that you do not understand, just ask for help. To communicate with other players, use the 'chat' command. For example, chat hi all! You should see the line chats, 'Hi all!' Do note that there are other channels for communication besides chat. '''1. Why don't I have any skills or spells? You start with only a weapon proficiency. All skills and spells have to be learnt from books, which can be bought or found on mobs in the game. You can buy the Basic books from the respective classes Guildmasters in Midgaard as below: Cleric Guild (recall, s, w) Mage Guild (recall, 2s, 2w, s) Warrior Guild (recall, 2s, 2e, s) Thief Guild (recall, 3s, e, s) Druid Guild (recall, 2s, 13w) The rest of the Advanced books that you don't see the Guildmasters selling, they can be found on mobs in game. You get the hint for the area that this mob is in for a price of 10k gold at the Midgaard Town Council (recall, s, e, u). Type 'hint area (book)' at the Midgaard Town Council for a clue (ie hint area adv fire combat. Tips: see the full book list by typing 'booklist'). The Clerk will tell you something like "The clerk say The book of adv fire combat is rumoured to be located in New Thalos." Then you simply have to go to that area and kill every mob you see. The mob that has the book will carry it in its inventory, if you kill the right one you will get it from its corpse after you kill it. As for the Books of Specialisation, they can only be won through quests, and books won through quests are non-transferable (meaning you CANNOT ask a uber powerful high Gen high Level imba character to quest for it and pass you the Spec book). Go to the Midgaard Town Council (recall, s, e, u) and type 'Questlist'. If you see there is a quest for the Spec Book that you want, type 'Questinfo (quest code)' to see the details of which mob to kill. If you are confident of defeating the quest mobs, then type 'Questjoin (quest code)' to join the quest. 2. How do I use a skill? There are passive and active skills. Passive ones, such as parry and dodge, will be executed automatically in a battle, depending on your proficiency in practice (check your 'prac' list). Active skills usually require movement points, and you just type the name of the skill to execute it, ie kick (target), smash (target). The target is optional when you're already fighting as the victim is by default your opponent. Some thief skills require mana instead of movement. 3. How do I use a spell? Spells need mana, so make sure you train enough mana to cast your spells. To use a spell, type 'cast' followed by the name of the spell. If the name contains more than one word, encase these words in single quotes, ie cast 'cure critical' . The default target for spells is yourself, so you would have to type the name of the target if you want to heal someone. For offensive spells, the target is optional since in a battle, the default victim would be your opponent. 4. Why does casting spells cost me much more mana than my fellow mage? Check the equipment you're using. If it's mostly metallic, then your spellcasting efficiency will be poor. Soft equipment such as silk, leather, cotton, and paper will enable you to cast spells using less mana, with higher chances of success. Observe the Spell entry on your score for the chances of success (the lower this number, the lower your chances of success), and the Mana entry for the percentage of mana needed to cast a spell (the higher the number, the more mana you need). 5. How can I gain more skills and spells? Type 'learn'. You will be able to see how many slots you've used and how many you have left. If you've used up your number of slots, try to obtain more slots. If you want to learn different skills/spells but have no slots, you can forget the books you've learnt and start anew. Refer to the next two FAQs for more information on slots. 6. What are slots? Slots constitute your capacity to learn books. You start the game with a predetermined number of slots, depending on your race. As for the number of slots needed for each book, type 'booklist' in the game to find out. 7. How do I obtain more slots? Karma Points (KP), a reward for winning wars and completing quests, can be converted to slots. The first slot you convert will cost 500KP, and each additional slot will require an extra 125KP. Thus, the fifth slot you gain through AP will cost 1000KP. Slots can also be obtained through fusion. The number of slots you can gain depends on your luck at the time of fusion (typically 3 or 4 to a max of 6 slots).